The Future

Al Gore recently published a book called "The Future". It should be noted that he was writing it during the Mayan Apocalypse buildup and his book has no mention of that hoax. It's not light reading but it helps me go to sleep. Unlike Lester Brown's "Plan B" which was written by research assistants and edited by Brown, Gore's book really reads like he wrote every word...which means it's boring as hell. His attempts at jokes are painful..."I'm a recovering politician..." or "Note to PETA, I'm not in the chicken housing business anymore."
And his attempts to be a commoner are even worse, "I favor the African saying, "When you pray, move your feet."
OK, Al. You really make me feel like you are totally in touch with your average farmer in Malawi.
But he's an intellectual force who probably didn't deserve to be President since he really is better than your every day postal worker. A world full of Al Gore's would be totally awesome and a world full of Oggy Bleachers would be a mess.
Exhibit A: in an attempt to make my disgusting chicken dinner more crispy I microwaved it and then threw the whole thing in the toaster oven. If the box didn't burn up in the ensuing fire I'd take a picture of where it says "Do not put in toaster oven"
Since the food was already a repulsive mess I didn't even care about a bit of melted plastic. It's like my theory that if you go to Taco Bell and drop your taco on the floor...it doesn't matter. Eat it anyway. There is no chance the taco got less healthy.

Some of us are destined to be leaders and some of us are barely hanging on.

step away from the toaster oven...

The book is about the 6 key "drivers of the future"
let's see if I can remember them...

emergence of a global economy
Global communication
lack of leadership
out of control capitalism
radical changes in science
environmental degradation

I'm reading this because it's these futuristic conditions that the protagonist characters in my Santa Cruz book are working against. So Gore is giving me the talking points that the characters rally against. Gore is saying what is coming and my characters (and the people in real life) are saying that it has to be stopped. It's a perfect conflict in my opinion, representative of the central issue in any society. The future must be built on the backs of the poor and destitute. Ayn Rand would say, "Yes, tough shit. The alternative is that we (men of the mind) hold up the train for people who can't spell 'train.'"
And the response of my ragged brethren in Santa Cruz is, "A society built on disposable citizens has no value. If all can't be included then you have fascism."

And the argument goes on and on. The community gardens of the world become Sam's Clubs and history rewards cheap pretzels.

(Incidentally, Rand fell for the Edward Bernays propaganda of "freedom torch" cigarettes smoked by women...and died of cancer.)
The former vice president and I agree that the most prescient feature of the present course of the future is that it is accelerated.
The never-brief Gore takes 37 pages to say the following:

Mankind:
Hunter Gatherers: 200,000 years
Civilization based on agriculture: 8000 years
Industrial Revolution: 150 years
Digital Age: 30 years
Next Age: ?

You see the pattern? It's called exponential growth. Any given 30 year period during the Hunter Gatherer era saw almost no change in behavior. Yet, in the last 30 years almost 100% of our daily activities have been altered by digital inventions.
If the pattern keeps up then you can expect radical changes to happen overnight.

Now, my characters in my book all argue this is pure propaganda. It has nothing to do with good choices or destiny. The accelerated growth is based on overt Bernays psychological warfare designed to perpetrate the largest land grab in history to return humanity to a feudal state disguised as democracy. Too bad that's exactly what is happening,  but the Mayor only wants to get reelected and the wife wants new curtains for the earthquake damaged houses she flips as an interior designer and the hippies want to smoke pot and Oggy wants to evaporate into a state of zen...and Bella wants to kill the man who raped her and the activists are trying to get clean socks for the crippled war veterans who end up on the street pouring Tabasco sauce in their ears to kill the bugs that are recording their thoughts and transmitting them to the government. That's the landscape I'm dealing with (DON'T WORRY IT'S ALL PURE FICTION OF MY SPOTLESS MIND)...and for the last few years I've been distracted and unable to focus on the future of my past. But now I'm ready.

I've lived on Battle Harbor, Labrador and I'm certain that's the model for mankind. No fucking way is a city like Houston a tenable solution. It's nothing but a Del Monte/Exxon funded work camp with different kinds of electric fences. Battle Harbor is real democracy, real work, independent, tribal, tight, pure. It would've lasted forever if not for the fucking Norwegian Cod Fish floating factories...I met a girl there who I pray will never know the shame thrust down the throats of women by the heartless cosmetology industry. If you have a culture of shame and degradation cloaked in elitist natural selection then don't have shit. Houston is a flesh factory. But propaganda will tell you otherwise...and so we will have the future Gore writes about. The Hippies are going to lose in the long run because someone has to can the tomatoes for the rich.

Do not be deluded, history is a succession of land being consolidated in the fewest hands...and the only difference is the propaganda used to disguise the truth. Culturally we've scraped the bottom of the barrel with our sagging asses. We accelerated our smart phones and decelerated any kind of dynamic philosophy. We're drunk, diabetic, drugged, lapping up the main stream media ejaculate from the marble floors of the uber-rich. Look at it like this...Al Gore was defeated by George W. Bush for President in 2000. Right? How did that work out? Well, the same thing is happening culturally. Gore publishes a 500 page treatise on the future while Bush tries to untie his own laceless boots. That's the difference. We were apes once and we can be apes again.

What do I know? I'm an asshole who can't cook a TV dinner...and I don't even have a TV.